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Calithump In Woodbury, Conn., one William James Coutts was last week married to a Miss S. E. Skilton. This couple failed fo observe an oldtime Woodbury custom: they failed to provide free cigars to as many bummers as could elbow their way into the wedding reception. Therefore the small sons and nephews of these bummers (also the hoodlum daughters and nieces) assembled automobile horns, Klaxons, tin pans, fish horns, blank cartridges, a fire siren; gave the Coutts on two successive nights what the local press described as "an oldtime calithumping."
First Families
One Howard F. Barker, author of "American Speech," recently compiled a list of the ten first U. S. families:
Smith...................................................................... 1,304,300
Johnson.................................................................. 1,024,200
Brown......................................................................... 730,500
Williams...................................................................... 684,700
Jones........................................................................... 658,300
Miller........................................................................... 625,800
Davis............................................................................ 537,900
Anderson...................................................................... 477,300
Wilson........................................................................... 422,300
Moore........................................................................... 363,400
Local circulation of names varies. In New York Cohen is second to Smith, Schwartz fifth. In Chicago Johnson is ahead of Smith and Anderson third. Boston's first five are Smith, Sullivan, Brown, Johnson, Murphy. Meyer is third in Cincinnati.
* A Babbitt is any person who by his muddled features, raucous costume, attitude or gesture defines himself as inescapably belonging to that type of Native American popularized in the novel of Sinclair Lewis.